A skewer in chess is a maneouvre where you attack a high-value piece or the king of your opponent, with the aim of taking the piece behind it. Only those pieces that attack along lines, i.e. your queen, bishops and rooks, are eligible to perform skewers.

A pin is simply a technique in chess where you trap one of your opponent’s pieces in front of another of their pieces, usually of high value or indeed the king. Similarly to forks, there are broadly 2 types of pins, absolute pins and relative pins.

One of the things that makes chess a complex and fascinating game is the range of movements of the various pieces. A queen can move any number of squares in any direction, making it the most useful piece on the board.

A fork in chess is a manoeuvre whereby a piece attacks two opponent pieces in one move. Any piece aside from the king can perform a fork on the opponent and many factors determine how successful the fork is in gaining an advantage over the opponent.

Castling is a common occurrence in chess. Games can be won and lost on the player’s ability to castle at certain points in the game. The basics of castling are that the king and one of the rooks cross over in a single move. The king moves two squares and the rook ‘jumps’ over him, landing on the square on the other side.